Conditions were far from ideal Saturday afternoon for the small contingent of Lions athletes that headed south to St Lawrence University to open their outdoor season, but that didn’t stop them from taking home some meet records and more than a few wins to open up their outdoor season.
A total of 10 Lions were in action at the SLU Intercollegiate Athletics Twilight Meeting, taking home four golds, a silver and a pair of bronze medals.
Victoria McIntyre dominated the fields in both the women’s 100 and 200 metres as she set new meet records in each event. On the straightaway, McIntyre was the class of the field, speeding her way to a time of 12.28 seconds – her fastest performance since 2013. The effort was so dominating, teammate Kennedy Banton-Lindsay took home the silver more than a second back of McIntyre.
The 200 metres produced a similar story line for McIntyre, with her winning time of 25.27 seconds again being her fastest in a decade as a combination of nagging injuries and the pandemic have kept the University of Toronto graduate off the track for much of that time. Banton-Lindsay fell a spot on the podium, taking third in 27.83.
Triple jump produced another victory and meet record for the Lions. Heather Grandy was commanding in her victory, leaping out to 10.78 metres almost a metre and a half clear of the field. Grandy’s jump added more than 20 centimetres to the previous meet record set in 2018.
For the men, Bertwin Ben-Smith picked up the only victory on the day. The University of Guelph graduate was first across the line of the 200 metres, stopping the clock in a time of 22.31 seconds, a half-second under the previous meet record. Teammate Michael Pinnock finished just off the podium in 22.90.
Fabrice Nonez opened his season with the best performance of his life. Known more for his hurdling, Nonez placed third in the flat 400 metres with a time of 51.39 seconds – more than a second faster than his previous best.
At the Limestone Race Weekend in Kingston, André Alie-Lamarche took second spot in the Saturday night’s 10k in a tightly contested battle with Queen’s University’s Roman Mironov. Alie-Lamarche crossed the line in a personal best of 31 minutes 55.88 seconds – 1.2 seconds back of Mironov.
On Sunday morning, Cameron Bruce took top spot in the half-marathon, finishing in a time of 1 hour, 20 minutes and 0.15 seconds. Daniel Cova placed second overall in the 5km race with a time of 16:08.83.
For updated Club rankings, please visit https://milesrowat.shinyapps.io/ottl_rankings/